Squash Enchiladas

The acorn squash used for this dinner was intended to be stuffed squash, but I knew that wasn't really something that was going to excite the masses. Not to mention, it was back up to around 85 degrees today and stuffed squash just didn't seem appropriate for the weather. Hence the acorn squash became enchilada filling. All I can say is, great idea!! Pureed roasted acorn squash mixed up with some sauteed veggies made for a fantastic enchilada. Both the sauce and the poblano pepper I diced into the filling added some heat, but even so these were deemed likable even by the kiddos!!

Acorn Squash Enchiladas

makes 9 enchiladas

1 acorn squash

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp salt

1 Tbs olive oil

1/2 large onion, diced (or one small I guess)

1 medium poblano pepper, seeded and diced

8 oz white button mushrooms, chopped

9 8-inch whole wheat tortillas

1 can Hatch Roasted Garlic Green Chile Enchilada Sauce

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Preheat oven to 350. Cut squash in half, remove seeds, and place cut side down in a baking dish with 1/4 inch water. Cover tightly with foil, and bake until soft, about 30 minutes. Remove squash and let cool. Once squash is cool enough to hold, scoop flesh into bowl of food processor, add chili powder, and salt and process into a smooth puree. Meanwhile, saute onion, pepper and mushrooms in olive oil. Add pureed squash to sauteed veggies and stir to heat through. Coat bottom of 9x13 pan with a few Tbs of enchilada sauce. Divide squash mixture evenly among tortillas and fold enchilada style (leaving one end open). Place tortillas side by side in baking dish and cover with remaining enchilada sauce. Place in 350 oven and bake until sauce is bubbly, and enchiladas are heated through, about 30 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with cilantro.

Enchiladas

Tonight I made the enchiladas that I blogged about last week.....you remember, the one's that my pictures were so embarrassingly bad I couldn't even post them!! These were the Black Bean and Sweet Potato Enchiladas from Vegan Planet. Yes, you read that correctly, I said sweet potato. Seems that sweet potatoes have been popping up in all kinds of strange places lately, from chili to quesadillas, and now they appear in enchiladas.

This is the second time in two weeks that we've had this dish, these things are crazy good!! It's a filling of roasted sweet potato, black beans, diced tomatoes, and some sauteed garlic and onion. All that spiced up with some chili powder (and according to the recipe a diced jalapeno, which I've omitted both times, and they've had plenty of spice). You just wrap all that filling up in a tortilla, top it with some salsa (the recipe calls for homemade, but being February there's a lack of fresh produce around, so I just used some jarred salsa), and bake it for about 20 minutes. Did I mention that these are GOOOOD??

The sweet potato is such a unique flavor in a Mexican dish. It adds such a nice depth of flavor that I really can't describe. Until fairly recently I've always thought of sweet potatoes as a "sweet" dish, topped with brown sugar, cinnamon, etc. Over the past few months I've learned that sweet potato adds so much to savory dishes. I expect you'll see the tuber appearing frequently in the cold weather months around here.

Tonight we had our enchiladas served on top of some Spanish style rice I threw together, and topped with some avocado slices. We also had a side of steamed asparagus that had just a squeeze of fresh lemon juice on it. For the rice, I just cooked up some brown rice in the rice cooker. When the rice was almost finished I sauteed half a medium onion, and one large clove of garlic in some olive oil. To the veggies I added about 2 tsp chili powder and an equal amount of ground cumin, and heated it up until it was fragrant. Then, I added in the almost cooked rice and sauteed that a bit. Once the rice was starting to brown I added in the juice from the diced tomatoes I used in the enchiladas, about 1 cup of water, and about 1 Tbs of tomato paste. I stirred it all up real good, brought it to a boil, then reduced the heat, covered and simmered until the liquid had evaporated and the rice was tender. This was one of the most delicious Spanish style rice dishes I've had.